AT&T 5G trials coming to Waco

Communications giant AT&T is expanding its 5G trials to include three new U.S. cities by year’s end, and the list includes Waco.

According to a report appearing in The New York Times, the trials “will test a faster broadband service in which the last leg of the connection is delivered by radio signal to a home or business using high-band wireless airwaves known as millimeter wave.”

Participants will be able to stream AT&T’s DirectTV Now service over a 5G connection “and experience shorter lag times for uses such as video conferencing and virtual-reality gaming,” according to the article.

AT&T is expanding 5G trials to business and residential customers in Waco; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and South Bend, Indiana, according to a company press release. It launched its second fixed wireless trial in June in Austin, recruiting a car wash, church, apartment unit and several small businesses, according to the press release.

“Trial participants in the new markets may include universities, hospitals, churches, restaurants and other small businesses,” AT&T reported.

The service is called fixed wireless, “and is expected to be the first application of 5G technologies and could eventually be a competitor to the high-speed Internet services offered by cable companies,” The New York Times reported. “It could also be less costly to the companies than deploying fiber to the home.”

The tests are meant to help the nation’s No. 2 wireless carrier determine if the millimeter wave spectrum can travel through foliage and buildings and to study the impact weather has on the signal, according to the press release.